Friday October 11

The rain ended overnight and the forecast for the day was looking good. We declined the in-motel breakfast and headed out to our favourite breakfast spot in Moab, The Love Muffin.

When we arrived, it was closed for some reason. We ended up picking up breakfast and lunch at Subway before heading out to the trail we selected for today. We travelled east about 20 miles along the Colorado River to the Fisher Towers trail head.

The Fisher Towers are a towering wall of spires. The trail climbs along the base of these giving some tremendous views of the spires and the Colorado River Basin. There was a lot of climbing on narrow ledge trails and some scrambling over slickrock.

Half way up the trail, we had a great view of "The Titan". We met some climbers who were spending two days going to the top.

We continued on to the "Trail End" which provided a good resting point and a great view of the "Towers" and the Colorado River.

A fantastic view of the Colorado River.

We had been monitoring the progress of some climbers who were ascending the jagged spire just right of centre in the photo.

We watched two of them make it to the top. Scary considering the wind that was blowing.

The trip down took much less time with a round trip distance of 6.5 miles and a total amount of climbing of 1500 ft.

On our way back to town, we stopped at the Castle Creek Winery for a little wine tasting. Didn't think Utah had vineyards but the wine was quite good.

We stopped to take a photo of a 5 mile stretch of the road next to the Colorado River which provides a great illusion of a very long "Magnetic Hill". Even the water looks like it is going uphill!

Saw some paddle boarders shooting the rapids.

We returned to our Motel, spent some time in the hot tub, then walked down the street to the Moab Brewpub for refreshments and supper. During our meal, we had a discussion about our best hike so far and I think that today's was a definite candidate for #1.

The good news for travellers is that Utah and Colorado have made a deal with Washington to pay the cost of operating some of the National Parks which will allow them to open tomorrow. We have a couple of other things lined up so I think we will avoid the National Park crowds and explore a couple of other places. We did have the opportunity to visit Arches and Canyonlands three years ago.